Author of three poetry books -- my newest is GODS OF WATER AND AIR, available on Amazon.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Time-Travel -- and Talk to Whom?

If you could time-travel, who would be your choice for a cozy chat? Being a novelist, mine would probably be Jane Austen, but as a poet, I'd have to have a talk and ramble with Emily Dickinson! With both dogs along, of course, her great big shaggy Carlo, and my dainty, shaggy little Nissa.

In my magical realism novel, The Renaissance Club, characters have those engaging conversation -- though they don't get to choose. A mysterious guide through Italy does the choosing, and some startling revelations are the result. Annoyance and disbelief also factor into the encounters. Here's an excerpt. Let me know if this is the kind of chat you'd like to have with someone from history.

The guide said, “The Renaissance was also a militant statement, a way that Rome
responded to the Protestants. The name of this church, Santa Maria della
Vittoria, or Mary of Victory, celebrate Rome’s victory in a battle with
Protestant troops. Ironically, this church, dedicated to a battle, wound up
enshrining the most feminine of Bernini's works. I think you’ll agree that this
sculpture of Teresa is the most feminine and motherly of saints.”

At this,
May felt a shock and then a welter of feelings. No sooner had they surfaced than
Teresa's eyes opened. The marble saint turned her head and looked at May--quite
a feat, with her head upside down.

Before May
could register disbelief, the saint waved at her and then waved away the angel,
who obligingly retreated.

Teresa sat
up and rearranged her habit, covering her feet.

“So you
want to have a child,” she said to May. “Well, I wish I had it as easy. Just
one child would be simple. They don't call us Mother Superiors for nothing. I
have more girls to look out for than a great-great-great-great grandmother!”

Teresa
raised a hand whose elegance was at odds with her long-nosed,peasant face. She scratched her nose, and
then gave May another little wave that oddly reminded May of Queen Elizabeth.

“But I'm
not going to become a nun!” May said.

Teresa
sighed so loudly she ruffled lace collars in the sculpted gallery of people
above her little stage.

“You are
way literal, aren’t you, dear?”

May
retorted, “Why do you sound like a teenager? You’re a peculiar hallucination.”

Teresa
smiled at her.

“You’re
entirely without the gift of metaphor, aren’t you? Things stand in for other
things, you see. Don’t take everything at face value. Look at me. I’m a
metaphor, aren’t I?”

“What for?”
asked May.

“For your
doubts. Your fears. You want to have a child because you’re so lonely. You’re
very young, younger than most of my nuns.”

“I'm
twenty-six!”

“Oh, that
is an advanced age. They must have excellent food in your century. You are I
are nearly the same age. Look at me. I look like an elder.”

“Yes, but
you live in a medieval convent. You eat, what, moldy bread?”

Teresa
smiled. Color came into her sculpted face. She pushed her draped veil behind
her ears, which May saw were rather large in proportion to her head.

“Maybe the
mold keeps us healthy. We don’t have penicillin yet, you know.”

“You're
just jet-lag,” May said, rudely. “God, I'm not even having this conversation!”

“Oh, yes,
you are. You're having what we call an extended epiphany. We’re outside time.
Now don’t argue with me, I know my spiritual states and stages. I wrote a
catalog of them, remember? Even God talks to Himself.”

“That is a
peculiar statement. So are we all just God talking to Himself?”

May pressed
the heels of her palms to her eyes. I shouldn't have had the linguine, she
thought. The clams tasted¾

“I am not a
clam. Take your hands off your eyes and behave yourself.”The authority in the saint’s voice reached
May. “I’m sorry.”

“Ssshhh!”
hissed Darren next to her.

“You should
be sorry, speaking to a mother that way. You need to think about why you want
to be a mother, and what it means. It’s the loneliest job in the world, unless
you come to see that to feel loved you have to give it. Look for the mother
within. And stop being so literal.”

“I am not
literal!”

“May, be
quiet!” Darren hissed.

“You are way
literal! Becoming pregnant is only one way to be a mother. There are more
profound ways, you know. Dear child¾allow
me this liberty because you seem so very young¾things stand in for other things.
It’s how life works. So be a mother without being a mother!”

“But how
can I have a child without having a child? My husband won’t consider adopting.”

The saint
raised her eyes to heaven. “Dear girl, motherhood is a lifelong career of opening
your heart to need. Whether you have a human being in your charge or simply
human beings in your life, the truth is that love is what mothering is all
about, and you can’t do it unless you find it within.”

“I don’t
want to find it within, unless it’s within my womb.”

“You are
exasperatingly stubborn. A baby is just a prod from God to make you learn the
self-sacrifice that He wants from all of us toward each other! Don’t you see?
Just skip the step of birthing and start treating everyone as your child.”

May watched
her recline again, as if about to go to sleep, or bliss, or wherever saints
went when they weren’t talking to you.

“I’m stuck,”
May said. “Just stuck. I can’t figure out anything.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, -- “

But with a
blink, the saint was again imprisoned in her stone ecstasy. May found herself
being poked by her husband.

About Me

Rachel Abramson Dacus is the
author of the poetry collections Gods of Water and Air, Earth Lessons, Femme au Chapeau, and the spoken word CD
A God You Can Dance. Read her work at: http://racheldacus.net. A widely
published poet, dramatist, and writer, she's working on a novel with a love story involving the great Baroque sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini.